Ukrainian drones swarm Russian troops, livestreaming as they reshape the face of war. Police arrest a Green Beret with insider knowledge for betting on the Maduro raid in prediction markets. On X, the everything website, Blackwater founder Erik Prince urges Pope Leo XIV to hire his mercenary forces so that they can protect persecuted Christians in Nigeria. Millions of fans watch Richard “Ninja” Blevins blast his way through Fortnite Battle Royale on Twitch for hours on end multiple times a week.
Each thread twists into a single braid where livestreaming, prediction markets, private military contractors, UAVs, and parasocial fandom entwine.
Say a conflict breaks out in Corto Maltese and various actors seek mercenary drone forces to deploy in the region. On a live auction structured like a Call of Duty lobby, drone mercs bid on these contracts. Once the bids are accepted, deployment dates are finalized. Come deployment day, the firms fire up their livestreaming so that fans can watch as their favorite mercs in miniskirts and cat ear headphones rain hellfire down on their targets from the comfort of their gaming chairs. Betting markets permeate the whole process—from gambling on auction results, to battle outcomes, to specific battle instances. A live chatfeed firehoses fan interaction with the streaming drone operators.
“What do we think, chat?” grins FPV drone merc phenom HelloKittyACAB as her drone hovers over an unsuspecting Corto Maltesian insurrectionary. “Kill or casualty? Lowkey better place your bets.”
Call this platform Ebat. It doesn’t exist yet, but it likely will. And it could fundamentally alter the face of combat.
Betting platforms like Kalshi, the first CFTC-regulated prediction market in the U.S., seek to transform everything into an exchange. “The long-term vision is to financialize everything,” Kalshi founder and CEO Tarek Mansour recently explained on a panel, “and create a tradable asset out of any difference in opinion.”
So why not combat? Sports betting has exploded, especially in the domain of combat sports like boxing and MMA. In fact, the audience for high fidelity violence already exists. The dissemination of gruesome combat footage from the Ukrainian battlefront and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict indicate a substantial appetite for such content on all sides. Take, for example, Eco-Leninist academic Andreas Malm’s self-reported reaction to watching the event of October 7th, 2023 play out:
“I think most of us—I can say that for myself and all my comrades—we were following these events on our phones, and we were seeing these clips of the resistance fighters breaking through the fence… and it was an incredibly invigorating and empowering experience.”
Such emotional reactions in high stakes situations with extreme violence will be received as entertainment for those an appreciable distance from the fighting—a massive potential audience for livestreaming entertainment. How is Malm’s response to October 7th any different from Swifties parsing the latest Taylor Swift gossip, or the various fandoms surrounding Columbine shooters Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris? These stimuli are emotional siblings, differentiated only by object. From such compulsive adoration markets are made. So, who will be the Ninja, the Clavicular, or the Sophia Rain of Ebat? Who will be their sponsors, their fans?
Given the popularity of Twitch streamers, OnlyFans stars, and professional gamers, envisioning a private military hybridization of these dynamics isn’t a far stretch of the imagination. And combining these with the addictive UI of slot machines and Fanduel is easier still. Ebat would merely emerge from already-existing demand signals and digital architecture, a combination of Twitch, CandyCrush, Fanduel, and snuff films.
In fact, much of what something like Ebat needs has already been pioneered in Ukraine, which has handily proven that replicable systems will play an increasing role in combat. Drones have continued to come down the cost curve, sitting comfortably in the hundreds of dollars range. Organizations like United24 have created mobile apps that allow users to directly fund Ukrainian drone operators, while Unite With Ukraine offers donors the opportunity to fund everything from trauma kits to FPV drones. Discord servers offer community engagement for online celebrities, but they have also provided off the shelf comms for strategic planning on the Ukrainian frontlines. Here we have the whole layout: cheap armaments, mobile apps, and audience engagement.
Beyond bloodthirsty fans, gambling enthusiasts, and lonely lurkers seeking a sense of belonging, intelligence agencies all stand to gain from Ebat. The platform would formalize (without compromising mission critical detail and attribution) the procurement of proxy forces. With these proxy forces come plausible deniability and ripe opportunities for destabilizing rivals. Ebat would offer itself as a ready vehicle for grey strategies pursued by any willing state actors.
Whether someone finds the prospect of Ebat thrilling or revolting, the concept arrives from five minutes into the future. What defense primes struggle to face and the defense establishment cannot reckon is the future’s forthcoming strangeness. Ebat, or something like it, could be the shape of combat to come. With our munitions stockpile cratering, the rationale for exquisite systems diminishing, and the assumption of American dominance continuing to fall into question, decision makers might have to look at the potential for Ebat or something like it with a realist’s panache for grim calculus.
The question isn’t whether Ebat is morally good or morally bad, but whether it is strategically useful in an epistemically uncertain world rife with geopolitical contestation. Are American munitions and boots on the ground always necessary? Are there not advantages to using a platform like Ebat? Shouldn’t we be prepared for the political liabilities (and opportunities) Ebat would bring to bear, especially if Ebat players ended up in combat against American troops or installations?
And is anyone prepared for new, emerging markets for lethality—and the rapid metabolism for technological change they would bring with them?
So, what do you think, chat? Kill or casualty?
Low key better place your bets.
